I live in a rural area and my winter bird feeders usually have:goldfinchtitmouseredpollseastern nuthatcheastern chickadeejunkos (who the hell names these things, anyway?)hairy woodpeckergolden fronted woodpeckermourning doveboat tailed gracklecarolina sparrowcardinalsbluejaysgrey squirrels, one of which was a rehab and is still pretty tame.a couple of optomistic but seldom lucky cats, mine and a neighbor's.and some other stuff that slips my mind at the moment.

My feeders are made from small, galvenized garbage cans and hold someting like 15# of black oil seed each.

Beyond the feeders, I'm not all that intense a bird watcher. This time of year, I'm usually herping, and later on it'll be bug watching. Having finally gotten a decent camera, I hope to finally get some photos worth keeping.

I have a house (of sorts) 'possum that visits through the cat flap and hustles handouts. He's also a damned good mouser.

doov

--------------It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.-- Giordano Bruno

Erasmus: Let's just say that by swedish standards it's an urban area. However, I came back from a week in New York a week ago, so it has a certain rural charm about it that I didn't notice two weeks ago.

I am up to 114 morels this year. I got fresh wild asparagus and poke sallet again thursday and we had pasta. Friday we took about 30 giant yeller ones like you got there and Sweet Thing made a chip dip with sauteed mushrooms and i don't know what all, fake crab meat, artichoke hearts, who knows. yum.

my neighbor just walked across the street and said do you know what this thing is? it was a giant yellow. he didn't know what it was. i'm going to see if there are any more.

--------------You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK

Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG

We tagged these about 10 miles from the house. Boy Kitty got his first radio collar and a tatt. Mommy Kitty got a new battery for her collar. They both got shots. We used dirty stinky bandanas to cover their eyes so they would associate people stink with sore butts and headaches. The anal probes were just rectal thermometers (we had to keep them cooled below 104 F, preferably <102 F).

Edited by Dr.GH on April 20 2008,14:55

--------------"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

I am up to 114 morels this year. I got fresh wild asparagus and poke sallet again thursday and we had pasta. Friday we took about 30 giant yeller ones like you got there and Sweet Thing made a chip dip with sauteed mushrooms and i don't know what all, fake crab meat, artichoke hearts, who knows. yum.

my neighbor just walked across the street and said do you know what this thing is? it was a giant yellow. he didn't know what it was. i'm going to see if there are any more.

But this can't be true. FtK says that you have no morals

We probably harvested 70-80 morels this morning; it is just the first day here, as far as I can tell (previous trips to the same spots yielded zilch). So I am looking forward to lots more, if I can get away from work over the next few days.

We also found lots of the false morels (Gyromitra sp.), like this one

We're not going to eat those...

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

albie that is great. how long does your season last? the gyromitras were up in the first of the month in my neighbors yard. he found a giant yellow one there in the same place yesterday.

Sweet Thang, Littlun and I found 32 more this evening. Most were weird shaped yellows that I am fairly sure have just emerged. a few yellows but no bigguns. we only looked for an hour or so, this is a patch i've already got 50 out of or so last week. it rained yesterday so i will be looking here again.

I swear I'm going to get some pictures up.

--------------You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK

Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG

albie that is great. how long does your season last? the gyromitras were up in the first of the month in my neighbors yard. he found a giant yellow one there in the same place yesterday.

Our morel seasons here are incredibly variable, since the weather in the spring can be incredibly variable here. Two years ago it was so dry in the winter and spring that there were no morels, or at least we found none, and I heard no positive reports from anyone else. Last year we got the first batch, then a ridiculous cold snap hit (temps in the teens for three days in a row), and there were no more after that. In 2004 (the best year I remember) the season lasted a couple of weeks; we had a good combination of rains and warm nights. We gathered and dried enough mushrooms that we only finished off the last of that batch in mid 2007.

I'm hopeful that this will be more like 2004!

Maybe FtK is partially right. I have a morel code, but it changes from year to year...

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

I'm up to 160 for the year, the last four a buddy gave me. last friday one of my patches was invaded by the homeless and there are Scott blossoms in my fishin hole. some old drunks, said he was a 'plumber, by trade'. I knew something was wrong when I walked in and saw a cat sitting in the woods looking at me. Then another. wtf. then a truck parked in the bushes. then two old drunks. then some more cats. then a bunch of shit strowed around the woods. then a mushroom.

there were a few there. they didn't know what they were and i told them there was a poisonous lookalike that would kill you and the person next to you. jeff where are you that the funguseses ain't amongusus ye?

--------------You're obviously illiterate as hell. Peach, bro.-FtK

Finding something hard to believe based on the evidence, is science.-JoeG

Today a colleague was going to treat us to (Canada) goose for lunch but as just a few have arrived so far he was only able to get one which we divided amongst us. The flavour was good but from the part-leg I had I think it must have walked here.

At the weekend I saw the first rusty blackbird, a grey heron (we are at about the northern limit of their range) and a flock of about 20 sandhill cranes. The ravens seem to be paired up and are doing aerobatics. A colleague saw two bald eagles feeding on road kill the previous weekend but so far I've not seen any.

The lakes are still mainly ice-covered but most of the snow has gone. In a melting snow-bank at the edge of town I saw what looked distinctly like wolf droppings (large, more hair than anything else). The pussy willow is out, the trees are changing colour as the buds expand and there are a few tiny green shoots showing here and there.

Today a colleague was going to treat us to (Canada) goose for lunch but as just a few have arrived so far he was only able to get one which we divided amongst us. The flavour was good but from the part-leg I had I think it must have walked here.

At the weekend I saw the first rusty blackbird, a grey heron (we are at about the northern limit of their range) and a flock of about 20 sandhill cranes. The ravens seem to be paired up and are doing aerobatics. A colleague saw two bald eagles feeding on road kill the previous weekend but so far I've not seen any.

The lakes are still mainly ice-covered but most of the snow has gone. In a melting snow-bank at the edge of town I saw what looked distinctly like wolf droppings (large, more hair than anything else). The pussy willow is out, the trees are changing colour as the buds expand and there are a few tiny green shoots showing here and there.

Please visit Chicago, where there are @ 1,000,000 Canadian Geese that you can eat. All they do here is eat and shit, usually all over my kid's sports fields.

Maybe FTK and her kids can stop by and help.

--------------Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

I saw my very first velvet worm last weekThis is the Tasmanian Giant Velvet Worm (Tasmanipatus barretti), a monster of almost 75mm!!!111This is a rather rare species only occuring in an area of 600 square km up in the north east of Tasmania. Luckily for me I was out with a friend who knew exactly the kind of habitat to look in.

Here's a shot that gives a better sense of scaleAfter reading about these and seeing them on TV documentaries it was very cool to see one for real. :-)

After reading about these and seeing them on TV documentaries it was very cool to see one for real. :-)

That is wicked cool! On my sole trip to the Southern Hemisphere I looked for these guys, but didn't find any. Congrats!

My best wildlife sighting of the weekend was three species of Zonotrichia sparrows, White-throated, White-crowned, and Harris' Sparrow, all feeding on the ground beneath my feeders, within a few inches of each other. I ran for the camera but they had dispersed before I could get it deployed.

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers

After reading about these and seeing them on TV documentaries it was very cool to see one for real. :-)

That is wicked cool! On my sole trip to the Southern Hemisphere I looked for these guys, but didn't find any. Congrats!

My best wildlife sighting of the weekend was three species of Zonotrichia sparrows, White-throated, White-crowned, and Harris' Sparrow, all feeding on the ground beneath my feeders, within a few inches of each other. I ran for the camera but they had dispersed before I could get it deployed.

You need the New LePage Brand Bird Feeder. They'll never fly away before you get your camera again.

--------------Come on Tough Guy, do the little dance of ID impotence you do so well. - Louis to Joe G 2/10

Gullibility is not a virtue - Quidam on Dembski's belief in the Bible Code Faith Healers & ID 7/08

My best wildlife sighting of the weekend was three species of Zonotrichia sparrows, White-throated, White-crowned, and Harris' Sparrow, all feeding on the ground beneath my feeders, within a few inches of each other. I ran for the camera but they had dispersed before I could get it deployed.

While out filling in collapsed gopher tunnels in my pasture, one of my dogs flushed a wild turkey. The poor thing was having a hard time getting altitude and did a faceplant into a wire mesh fence. Dog almost caught it before it took off again, this time parallel to the fence, and hightailed it into a juniper tree. I looked where it came from and found it a nest with 13 eggs in it. I'm not sure how long they have been there, so I'll need to keep an eye out to see when they hatch.

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

While out filling in collapsed gopher tunnels in my pasture, one of my dogs flushed a wild turkey.

That's a pretty impressive dog. How did you train it to fill in gopher tunnels? :p

Simple. I told them that I wasn't going to feed them for free. If they wanted to eat, they needed to work. They were so intent on survival that they evolved opposable thumbs. Praise Darwin!

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

Well, I have had some other sphinx moths today, mostly white lined. The most cool visitor was a downey woodpecker. If you are in an area where they are common, they might not be a big deal. Here they are rare so I get a kick out of seeing them.

The english sparrows have wiped-out the mourning cloak caterpillars. We had several painted lady butterflies this morning. I watched a 12 spot lady beetle emerge. Sorry I forgot pictures (I tried on the woodpecker, but they were cummy).

I went fishing at Santa Catalina Island today (about 10 species of fish cuaght) and saw quite a number of gulls, terns, cormerants, shearwaters, pelicans etc... Also a bald eagle. Sea Lions were all over the place as usual. Just outside Dana Point harbor we saw a blue whale.

Edited by Dr.GH on April 28 2008,21:20

--------------"Science is the horse that pulls the cart of philosophy."

Got a call that there was a bee swarm near one of our buildings this afternoon, so I went to see it. It was pretty cool, and a decent size swarm, as you can see.

We contacted the extension entomologist to see if anyone wanted to collect it (it is worth about $80-100 to a beekeeper). That question was answered in the affirmative, and so we helped collect them. That is a very high-tech process, involving a cardboard box and a couple of people shaking the branch to dislodge the bees, allowing the swarm (hopefully containing the queen) to drop into the box.

A chemistry prof (not shown) who is an amateur beekeeper was the lucky recipient. As the old English rhyme goes:

A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon; A swarm of bees in July isn't worth a fly.

We also found the parent hive from which this swarm originated; it is in a hollow branch of an oak tree about 30-40 feet from where this swarm was found. Maybe we'll get to find another one next spring!

--------------Flesh of the sky, child of the sky, the mindHas been obligated from the beginningTo create an ordered universeAs the only possible proof of its own inheritance. - Pattiann Rogers